Just A Teenage Boy
by Mimbulus-Mimbletonia17
Summary: It all started with a turnip.  It ended with a boy who had startling green eyes, a lightening shaped scar, and who had fallen in love with a girl that shouldn't exist. Arthur finds out why there is suddenly, after 7 generations, a girl in the family.


Disclaimer: If I owned this, Harry and Ginny would have gotten together waaayyy sooner. Just sayin'.

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The Weasley family is well known throughout the Wizarding World for two main reasons: their vibrant red hair, and their huge numbers of male children. Seven generations ago, after a rather unfortunate incident involving a turnip, the Weasley family had been cursed. Anyone bearing the last name of 'Weasley' hadn't had a daughter since. Although it is also true that they have had more sons than most wizards wish to, it's not believed to be part of the curse. Then Ginny Weasley had been born, and the Weasley's assumed the curse had been lifted.

She was the seventh child of Arthur and Molly Weasley, and of course their only daughter. Nobody knew how or why the curse had been lifted, and the little newborn Ginny wasn't giving them any clues. 5 years later, Ginny was still the only witch to be born a Weasley. It seemed our troublemaking toddler (Fred and George were her favorite brothers after all) had somehow gotten around the powerful spell.

Just as the Weasley's were known for their red hair, Albus Dumbledore was well known for his accurate theories. So naturally when the Weasley's started to wonder how Ginny was a girl, they went to Dumbledore for a solution. His guess was this: Ginny was special. Special for a reason that couldn't be possible if she had been born a boy. Arthur had always assumed she would be a witch's rights leader, as some purebloods (such as the blasted Malfoys) still treated witches as property. When she decided her favorite Quidditch team was the Holyhead Harpies, an all girls team, Arthur thought his own theory had been proven.

It was the day after the battle at Hogwarts, and Arthur hadn't thought of such things since Ginny was eleven. She was almost seventeen now, and he had even more important things on his mind. The war was over, yes, but the impact it left behind had hit everyone hard. Fred was dead, and George seemed as if he had died with him. His daughter, blissfully unaware of her important future looming ahead of her, had been melancholy (understandably) since Dumbledore's funeral. Arthur's family seemed to be falling apart around him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

That day Arthur saw something that gave him hope for the future of the Wizarding World and solved the mystery of Ginny Weasley's own future.

Arthur, Molly, Bill, Fleur, Charlie, a disheartened George, Ron, Hermione (an honorary Weasley) and even Percy was sitting at the end of the Gryffindor table when he walked up. The-boy-whom-trouble-seemed-to-follow, (no, not Neville), the man-who-defeated-you-know-who, the-one-who-hates-hyphens-with-a-passion, Harry James Potter, looked exhausted. For once, Molly's exclamations of how peaky he looked and forced fifth helpings would be founded on solid evidence. But the poor boy didn't even have a chance to sit down before Ginny stood up and slapped him in the face. Hard. He didn't flinch; look shocked, angry, or even upset. He'd clearly been expecting it, Arthur realized, when Harry sighed. Ginny burst into tears, and for the two minutes she was crying (she'd never been big on crying) Harry was her comfort. He held her and patted her back awkwardly. Even after all this he was still a teenage boy. And, as with all teenage boys, he was not good with girls crying. Ginny resurfaced from Harry's shoulder, with puffy eyes and suddenly, Arthur was feeling nostalgic. His daughter was all grown up and could take care of herself. Or rather, Harry could take care of her. He wished that an ice cream could still solve all of her problems as it had when she was a child.

As he looked at the dark haired boy next to her, it seemed about six pieces of chicken would solve all of his problems. In fact, Arthur had never seen a boy that hungry let anything stop him from filling his stomach with whatever he could get his hands on. But here he was, holding Arthur's daughter as she murmured things to him that Arthur only caught bits and pieces of. Among them, the most common he heard was "noble git" and "lose you". Harry looked guilty now, under Arthur's searching gaze, and Arthur started to understand.

After dinner, Arthur went on an investigation. He muttered, "Be back later" to his wife, and quickly started on his way to the headmaster's office. He vaguely wondered in the back of his mind who would be the headmaster/headmistress now. No doubt Professor McGonagall would get the job. When he reached the gargoyles, they opened automatically, as if they had been expecting him. He climbed the stairs and entered the office and noticed that Snape hadn't changed anything. His eyes darted around the room until they landed on the object he was searching for. It was a large ornate frame picturing an old man snoring. Loudly.

Arthur approached the portrait of the heavily bearded man who was wearing dark blue robes and spectacles that were crooked on his crooked nose. Arthur cleared his throat with hesitation and the old man opened his startling blue eyes. "Um, hello Dumbledore," Arthur mumbled, feeling quite queer for talking to a portrait.

"Why hello Arthur," Dumbledore said pleasantly as he straightened his glasses. Arthur didn't appear to have gotten over his nerves, and only after a long pause under Dumbledore's piercing gaze did he manage to say anything at all.

"It's Harry isn't it?"

"I don't have the slightest idea. What are you referring to?" The twinkling in the old man's eyes had increased ten-fold and Arthur knew that Dumbledore knew exactly what he'd been referring to. The old man was amused by Arthur's tongue-tied-ness, and Arthur couldn't really blame him. It must be boring sitting in a portrait all day. The fact that his amusement was at Arthur's expense was not lost on the red haired man. Again a long silence reigned due to Arthur's nervousness.

And then, in a rather accurate impersonation of the man in question, Arthur blurted out what was on his mind. "Ginny'sagirlbecauseHarry'sinlovewithher" It seemed that however old any man was, he would always be uncomfortable with the subject of love.

Dumbledore smiled, and said, "I believe you could be right, but as I'm not quite positive I heard you correctly, we cannot be sure."

Ignoring that last bit of Dumbledore's response Arthur continued, rather inarticulately, "But…why…err…" and then recovered to say, "Why is that so incredibly important? I mean, love's great and all but…?"

"Not strong enough to stop a curse?" At Arthur's nod he continued, "The boy's alive today because love stopped a curse. Furthermore, his whole life, since he started at Hogwarts at least, has been about stopping Voldemort. He has lost nearly everything dear to him because of that despicable excuse for a man. And so, once Voldemort's gone, what's left for him? Surely not the Muggle relatives that mistreated him as a child. Harry's a natural hero, to be sure, and he would have done anything in his power to stop Lord Voldemort, no matter what. But without Ginny's love, and his love of her in return, he wouldn't have succeeded. The 'power he knew not' was not just Lily's love, but Ginny's as well. He was determined above all else, to do anything he could to protect your daughter. It gave him the extra strength that without, he couldn't have succeeded."

Arthur just sat there for a moment, collecting his thoughts, pondering Dumbledore's wise words and when he finally rose to his feet, preparing to leave. Dumbledore informed him that his family had relocated to the Gryffindor common room. He didn't know how the portrait of Dumbledore knew that, but he nodded and headed that way.

On the walk there, Arthur grew giddy with joy at the news, and by the time he entered the common room, he couldn't control himself. "Molly! I found out why Ginny's a girl!"

Everyone in the common room, Molly, the Weasley's and several people that Arthur didn't even know looked at him with the same mixture of shock and amusement. Then Percy piped up,

"Well, dad, you see, when a man and a woman love each other very much…" He trailed off, much to everyone's (except Arthur's) amusement. Arthur promptly blushed a brilliant shade of Weasley red. After everyone had calmed down, and Molly figured out what the heck Arthur was talking about, she prompted him to tell the story, as none of their children nor the rest of the still fascinated common room, knew of the curse. At the end, when every girl in the was "aw!" ing and just before the guys started to take the mickey out of him, Harry faked a yawn, and called it a night, if only to avoid Ginny's brothers, who were currently staring him down with suspicion in their eyes. He was after all, still a teenage boy, who would like to avoid a conversation involving how he felt about Ginny.

The next morning found Ginny in Harry's arms, while they sat on a couch in the common room, staring at the fire, and still avoiding Ginny's brothers. Ron had had a hard enough time when they got together in the first place. Harry had a feeling that this new development, and the fact that Harry had broken Ginny's heart when he left, wasn't going to help matters much. They assumed the other brothers weren't going to be much better.

They were seated thus when Arthur found them and it warmed his heart. After this war, he had been afraid there wouldn't be love in the Wizarding World anymore. These children (actually now adults, though Arthur and Molly refused to admit it) had grown up in a time of war. Love had been pushed aside as the most important thing became exterminating the other side. Or so he thought. One boy had not only saved the world, both Wizarding and Muggle, but also restored Arthur's faith that love truly conquers all. And his daughter had helped make it possible. He couldn't have been more proud of her, and her love, who was still, after all, just a teenage boy.

_Fin_

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So, I originally said that Ginny was only almost sixteen. While I knew this was wrong, I decided to make her younger for no apparent reason. This has been bugging a few people ( quite understandable, considering it would bug me if I hadn't been the one to write it) so that is why I had to repost it. I finally fixed it! :)

This is a one-shot, just in case you were wondering, I didn't have room to tell you in the summary.

M-M17


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